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Re: (OT) my first fired experience

by Jenda (Abbot)
on Jun 13, 2010 at 20:42 UTC ( [id://844480]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to (OT) my first fired experience

I can relate to your feelings about the unfinished project. I would feel the same. Though ... I used to work for a financial firm as well, a much much bigger one, not even sure how many levels were there between me and the capo di tuti capi. And I also left an unfinished project. But I was not fired, I left on my own and I do not give a damn about the project.

The system I was appointed to work on was in a horrible state so as soon as I got to know it a bit I sat down to try and give it a bit sounder foundation. Shared code, the first ever regression test, ... and found out that it takes hours to "release" a one character change (19:00 to 18:00 in a one line shell script), that I spend more time fighting the many ill-designed ticketing and change requesting and approval preventing applications than developing. That I have to manually test and provide "test evidence" any part of the system that might have been affected ... only to find out that the development, QA and production system have different version of perl, compiled with different options and with different sets of installed Perl modules and system libraries, ... (Yes, now I am venting).

You know what? To hell with the work, to hell with the system and to hell with the company. If the company does its best to prevent me from working ... I kinda handed over the stuff I did, I had the modules documented from the very beginning and do I care there are a few things that were days from completion? That could have made the system much quicker? In a situation when the system barely keeps up with the load? Nope!

BTW, you know what's funny? Out of the New York part of the team there were only Indians (making unintelligible sounds) and one Russian (if you've heard such a strong accent in an action movie, you'd thing they are overdoing it.) And all of them loved phone-calls. Hey dude! I don't understand a word of your mumbling! And I would not consider any single one of them competent. A huge and important company. I'm not surprised by the financial crisis! I'm surprised it's not much worse.

Anyway, I hope you find a new job soon. Fingers crossed!

Jenda
Enoch was right!
Enjoy the last years of Rome.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: (OT) my first fired experience
by Your Mother (Archbishop) on Jun 13, 2010 at 22:56 UTC

    Well, since we're already OT.

    I'm not surprised by the financial crisis! I'm surprised it's not much worse.

    It is much worse. There is just enough inertia to make it appear otherwise for awhile yet.

Re^2: (OT) my first fired experience
by leocharre (Priest) on Jul 05, 2010 at 11:03 UTC

    I lived with a Russian paparazzi in Boston, who used to make art under the Soviet Regime, would be told what to paint. Old school Russians are creepy and smart as all hell!

    You know what's funny- I had two or three projects there that are base to what they do. We designed and I wrote and tested everything by myself- alone- it was .. Hard as hell- No room for error- An error means data loss- means loss of clients or worse- I was automating maintenance of gobs of user created data- heuristic psychodelia- lemme tell ya-

    Point is, stuff I made is sound. I made sure to document well- to allow for failures- etc etc- In the case that should anything ever happen to me- should I leave, or die- I wouldn't leave behind just a mountain of undecipherable hacks- and if you've worked in a small isp/hosting company run by unix hackers.. and I have.. oh man.. the creepy things they leave behind. It's like these guys walk around and half solved rubik cubes are falling out of their pockets behind them! Only, these things run the company!

    So I made sure not to leave such fragile insanity.

    And.. I'm a little bit proud of the fact that I *can* be fired- the software systems still run- caring for the little bits and bytes of human endeavour :-)

      Well, the system I left (due to the company selling off some branches) a few years ago still runs, prettymuch untouched. But that was my baby. Even if adopted. Something I fixed, extended and cared about. Something I was allowed to fix.

      The project I complained about is actually ... erm ... pretty important as well. It provides "static" data about financial products to almost every system in the company. It's not built as such.

      Jenda
      Enoch was right!
      Enjoy the last years of Rome.

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